Fire Emblem: Awakening is my first Fire Emblem game and holy crap it is good. One of the best games if not the best this year.

Beat the game on hard+classic without losing heroes. Didn't have much knowledge of the inheritance and such so I ended up having completely carbage team at the end. Replayed on hard+newcomer focusing more on getting Galeforces and stuff to the 2nd generation - which made the end game too easy.

Currently stuck on lunatic+classic on chapter 5 which I just can't do without losing someone. Frederick is level 9 paired with level 3 Chrom. My MU is level 6.

Is there another FE game similar to Awakening you could recommend? I tried playing Path of Radiance shortly but at least the couple of first maps didn't have quite the same epic feeling I got from Awakening.

Are that statboosters really random? I am sure I always got the same items at C25 and C24 when I used a Rift Door there (which was 2 or 3 times at both places).

They have been for me. Sometimes I get a Hammerne Staff with 2 stat boosters, sometimes it's 3 stat boosters, sometimes it's Hammerne Staff, Arms Scroll and only a single stat booster. I'll admit I've gotten stupid amounts of Secret Books though. Talismans would be nice, though. Most of my units have atrocious Resistance. <_<

As for similar Fire Emblem games, it's hard to say. Awakening was designed to be an all-stars game, including a lot of popular features from older Fire Emblem games. Obviously, problem is that none of the games up until now have all of them. Marriage and inheritance was picked up from Fire Emblem 4 (Genealogy of the Holy War/Seisen no Keifu), skills from various Fire Emblems (4, 5, 9, 10), reclassing from Fire Emblem 11 & 12 (Shadow Dragon and New Mystery of the Emblem), traversable world map from Fire Emblem 2 & 8 (Gaiden and Sacred Stones) and finally, support conversations have more or less been mainstays since Fire Emblem 6.

But for epic feels that early into the game? Gee, I don't know. Fire Emblem 4 has absolutely gigantic maps and as such, so you're conquering castles and kingdoms from the Prologue rather than defending yourself against some boring bandits until it escalates.

Fire Emblem games do differ somehow. For example I am playing FE 4 right now (Awakening is FE 13, Path of Radiance FE 9). That game only has 12 maps, but each of those is so large that it could be 4-5 chapters in most other FE games (including Awakening). From the story perspective, FE 4 is probably one of the most epic ones, telling a story of war that spans two generations (it was the first and only other FE with a marriage system) and has huge armies fighting one another.

Most other FEs are only taking place on either one continent and/or a short amount of time. Awakening is a bit special and is probably the FE with the most customizable content because of the ability to train every character in skirmishes and change their class so they start at level 1. But that doesn't mean other FE games are bad. I really like Path of Radiance and especially Radiant Dawn, Sacred Stones is sadly way too easy, but the game itself is still quite good.

I would suggest that you just try out some of them. The overall gameplay is pretty much the same in the whole series (with some one time features and others, like the weapon triangle, that were common in the series after their first appearance).

Well, Shadow Dragon is just a rerelease of FE 1. I never finished it, because the dialogues are just stupid, imo. Heck, I thought the newly added prologue had better dialogues. But oh well, I will probably still play it someday.

Also, FE 7 was the first game that was released outside of japan, but for FE 4-6 at least (Not sure about 1-3) there exists english fan translations, even if not everything is translated (I think the marriage proposals in FE 4 don't work, but that's probably pretty much all that wasn't translated). And FE 1+2 = NES, FE 3-5 = SNES, FE 7-9 = GBA, FE 9 = NGC, FE 10 = Wii, FE 11+12 = NDS, FE 13 = 3DS.

If I'd have to recommend a Fire Emblem game, I'd say Radiant Dawn.
Why do I recommend Radiant Dawn? Because the game doesn't just tell one story, nope. It tells 3 different stories, into 1 grander scheme.
Radiant Dawn also has skills like Fire Emblem: Awakening and most maps are semi-large/large.
The first part is the hardest part of the game, play that on hard and it's about the same as Lunatic
The story is quite nice, the only thing that's lacking is the supports. They're kind of stale, but you can still combine people for different endings.
Animations are done quite nicely in Radiant Dawn, I'd say the best in the entire Fire Emblem series to be honest.
Radiant Dawn also features the hardest final boss in the franchise and the ability to promote twice [without master seals even].

I am doing Sidequest 2 right now. I couldn't save Anna (stupid archers), but I was able to save the village. So I thought, lets lure out the boss while I kill the other 3 units. Yeah, so, the boss had a 17% hit chance and 6% crit chance against Lon'qu and critted. >_>

Whenever strategizing, the enemy's crit chance is secretly doubled and the hit chance boosted by an additional 50% if below 20.

Meanwhile, your own skills never trigger, and if you crit, you do it at the fourth Brave Sword hit rather than first. D:

Yeah - then again, Frederick pulled of several crits with under 10% (even 2 2% crits in a row, wtf). But I now beat it - of course that one time when Lissa had the worst level up of all trys with 1 single stat up. Everytime Lissa has a bad level up in Lunatic I beat that chapter. I should just turn the game off next time Lissa gains 3 or more stats during a level up... xD

lunatic seems to be pretty luck dependt to me ,< sometimes enemy 50% hit hits me 4 retrys in a row and in the 5th i finally clear it kinda pisses me off ^^

If you think that's annoying, try hard mode Radiant Dawn chapter 5, that chapter requires the NPCs to survive to clear it, and one of the characters is a wyvern rider who can randomly use a vulnerary between 3 units or use one next to an enemy, etc. Suicidal behavior.
The entire chapter is based on if the RNG likes you or not. Brace yourself, 9001 restarts are coming. [Also the lovely Bronze Bow Archers that can oneshot ur mage/priest, lovely]

Is there another FE game similar to Awakening you could recommend? I tried playing Path of Radiance shortly but at least the couple of first maps didn't have quite the same epic feeling I got from Awakening.

The problem with other FE games is that the feeling of epic doesn't kick in until later. I divide Awakening into three parts (and since I'm a nerd I name them after D&D 4E parts): Heroic tier is the premonition to chapter 11, paragon tier is chapter 12 to chapter 20, and epic tier is chapter 21 to endgame. Awakening brings the big awesome feels starting just after chapter 7 (when Ylisstol falls and Emmeryn is taken) and follows up with an awesome end to that storyline, plus two epic storylines afterwards.

By contrast, FE7: Blazing Sword has a really excellent storyline and ending, but the epic feels don't start until chapter 18 (19 in Hector mode). It's been too long since I've played FE8: Sacred Stones, but I recall the epic feels starting around chapter 9 - but because of the way the story goes (the first eight chapters are the same, but afterwards you pick one of your two lords to follow in his/her story), that's halfway through the game. The lower difficulty also cheapens the experience for me.

FE9: Path of Radiance does a good job depicting the reality of warfare - there's a chapter devoted to breaking out POWs to reinforce your army, several chapters devoted to the fear and hatred that spring up among the common people (and supposedly, if a comrade falls, your commander and his lieutenant talk about it at length - though I've never let anyone die, so I can't personally confirm that). The tradeoff, though, is that the epic feels don't really start until around chapter 15 (maybe earlier if you pick up on clues the plot leaves you). FE10: Radiant Dawn, as you may know, features the heroes of PoR plus a new cast, which leads to having a ton of options available. It's also great because - as mentioned - while it has one "main" story that focuses on the new cast, there's also two other major stories to be told about the old cast. If you've played PoR, RD picks up the epic pretty early on - "Be at ease, Maiden. I shall not let him harm you. I was once one of the Four Riders, serving the army of old Daein. If you recall the name of the Black Knight, you will withdraw from this place at once." Oh jeeze the shivers. Otherwise you're probably not going to get the epics until most of the way through the game (unless you like court intrigue, idk).

Blazing Sword is a great game that I haven't played enough, with a lot of really well fleshed-out characters, especially the lords. PoR and RD don't flesh out their characters as much - partly because there's so goddamn many of them - but I still feel they make for an epic and realistic story. Be warned, though, I've categorized them together for good reason - the ending of FE9 takes place on a much smaller scale than the ending of, say, FE13, and while it's fairly epic on its own, the true ending is at the end of FE10. It's well worth the effort, imo.

So, haven't really played Awakening, but I am now in C9 in FE 4. Trying to recruit Hanibal was a pain, because I didn't know he won't attack, so I somehow tried to put him to sleep with Patty. She survived 1 attack and had exactly 1 HP left. I had to reload so damn many times, but it FINALLY worked when she was one of the last unit swho could do anything. So I "only" had to protect her and everyone else from the ~6 units that were stil alive and had all hero weapons equipped, yeah, awesome... xD

Progressing slowly through my DLC only run now, had a level 20 MyUnit by chapter 4 (Ferox Arena). Chrom was level 12 or something... :x
Had to basically duo the Lute spotpass level, Celica's Gale and Levin Sword to the rescue!
Felt amazing to do that chapter while MyUnit was the same level as all the other units, yet I still beat 10 of them D: (I had a fair share of luck to say the least).
Basically recruited them in this order: Mist > Florina > Eirika > (Failed Amelia attempt) > Lute (God how lucky) > Amelia (Lol Lute owning all the knights) > Champions of Yore 1 > Soren > Champions of Yore 2.

Have a normal size army now to say the least, lost faith in Eirika though, 9 strength at level 13? Please :<
Will probably dump Eirika for Mia or something of the sort, whenever I challenge her that is.
Lute's base stats made me kinda sad, Soren's base stats own her in basically every stat except magic lol.
Noticed I could class change Prince Marth into Grandmaster... Grandmaster Marth here I come!
Florina seems to have a thing for getting Magic, obvious Dark Flier candidate right there [Level 14, 13 str, 12 magic]

Currently at chapter 7, patiently waiting for my first Master Seal so I can promote MU
(And waiting for more so I can promote Lute as well lol).
Will wait a bit to do CoY3 for Micaiah, seems a bit too hard right now to deal with so many units with those great weapons...
Will see who I keep or who I replace for this save.

Yeah, I think the run itself is a bit too crazy on Lunatic. Might wanna do Lunatic itself first. ^^

Originally Posted by Raminax

Yeah, Julia running around with Book of Naga that early is absolutely stupid. Then again, it is her personal weapon and god was it even more broken back in FE4.

And yeah, DLC characters are quirky. Much like the Avatar, they can reclass however they want to, gender permitting.

Let's not forget Lyn with her Sol Katti as well. 50% Crit, totally not broken. 2nd DLC was kind of a pain in the ass as well, due to Eirika/Lyn/Celica pulling all the enemies to me, and I had to deal with 3-4 at once. Got unlucky the first 2 tries (90% miss shenanigans). Still made it in the end with Soren/Lute in the northeastern fort, Pr.Marth and Chrom to the left of the town and just make them come one by one. ^^
That tactic won't work on the third map though, so I'll have to cut my way through one side first and hope my back line doesn't get owned by the other side.
Although Prince Marth is pretty darn strong now, beating every stat from Chrom by about 4 [except def, but it's swapped with res]. On a sidenote, does anyone know if Pr.Marth retains his ability to use Falchion even if he changes to, say, Grandmaster? Or is it Lodestar only?

Lack of Dual strikes/Dual guards is kind of annoying though
Also it's damn quiet with everybody going Red on me with the "..."